When your whole life feels like a dog-and-pony show, there’s nothing to do but go to the circus!
According to my trusty Lonely Planet, the Russian Circus was established in the 1980s during a time of strong Soviet influence in Laos. The circus stages performances just a few times each year, so when my friend Catherine suggested we go, I jumped at the chance. We hired Mr. Kek (the hammock-dwelling mango-loving tuktuk driver) for the evening.
A carnival atmosphere pervaded the neighborhood outside the rustic bigtop. Crowds milled about snack stalls, pop-the-balloon dart games, a bouncy castle, booths selling everything from hair barrettes to underwear to toy guns, and a primitive looking merry-go-round with swinging aluminum animals.
We bought our tickets (15,000 kip or $1.78 each), including one for Mr. Kek, and filed in with the other circus-goers. We were led to assigned seats on stadium-style narrow wooden benches. About two-thirds of the seats remained empty; most of the rest were filled with Lao families. We recognized a handful of other foreigners, but the show’s late starting time deterred expats with young children. Scheduled to start at 8 p.m., it actually got going around 8:30 and finished at 10, well past bedtime.
As we waited for the show, a live band in the balcony played loud traditional music, a disco ball swirled colorful lights across the smiling faces in the audience, and performers occasionally popped their heads out from behind the purple curtains at the back of the ring. In the center of the round theater, a low perimeter wall encircled the stage area and a bright orange and yellow mat covered the ground.
Here were some highlights:
• A young woman came running through the purple curtains and grabbed a thick rope hanging from the ceiling in the center of the ring. She promptly tripped and lost her grip on the rope, which seemed to be a bad omen. Fortunately, she climbed the rope and did a number of scary acrobatic stunts while suspended and then descended unscathed.
• A man and woman did partner stunts interspersed with breezy dance moves reminiscent of doomed ballet lovers. Their act culminated with her doing a headstand on top of his head while he stood, sat and turned 360 degrees on the floor.
• Another couple performed a variety of tricky handstands. The most impressive was when the boy bent forward and the girl draped backwards over his back and grabbed her own feet under his stomach. He then pushed up into a handstand on some wobbly metal handles with her still attached around his middle.
• A group of young men juggled fedoras and weakly attempted some hat choreography. I started to think they messed up intentionally to build suspense for their more dangerous pursuit – juggling daggers.
From here, the evening took a bizarre turn.
• A girl in a leopard-print leotard came out and danced to the tune of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” with a group of menacing shirtless guys in ripped pants, black capes and creepy masks with attached frizzy black hair. Stagehands pushed a strange camouflage-painted pyramid – about 6 feet tall – into the ring, and a young man clad in a fake-fur caveman costume chased away all the baddies and did a few synchronized round-offs with the girl. Then the girl went to the pyramid, dropped open one side of it (to reveal the sloppy plywood construction) and pulled out a big python. She wrapped it around her neck and body and paraded it on the ring’s perimeter wall while the boy did random acrobatic jumps and dance moves. She spent quite a long time arranging the snake on the floor in a zig-zaggy formation before joining the boy for a few more leaps and lifts. A solid girl who looked like she’d rather be playing field hockey, she wobbled a bit in her airborne spread-eagle and seemed a bit apologetic when the poor guy lifted her one-armed over his head. She then writhed around on the floor and did a few solo moves while the guy visited the snake pyramid to extract a pet of his own – a python or boa or some other kind of enormous snake. The boy had to wriggle and twirl for several minutes to tangle himself up with the snake enough that he could walk without dragging it. He made a big show of kissing the snake and sticking its head in his mouth. He followed the girl’s lead to arrange the snake on the ground before rejoining her for some final acrobatic stunts. While they pranced about, both snakes slithered and looked keen to escape, but before long they were both scooped up and taken offstage.
• Next a group of guys performed leaps over a flimsy table and on to some worn-out mats, shaking it up a bit with a few variations: adding a pommel horse, soaring over other acrobats lying on the table, flying through a clown’s legs as he stood on the table, and finally jumping through hoops set on fire.
• The fire theme continued with a surreal act involving two girls in jungle costumes twirling fiery batons (which dropped repeatedly on to the apparently flame-retardant yellow mat), gyrating with blazing hula hoops, taking sips of some incendiary liquid and spewing into their tiki torches to blow massive fireballs, and rubbing the lit torches over their exposed skin (which was shiny with some protective substance).
• Another pair of girls came out to simultaneously twirl stacks of conflagration-free hula hoops, which was impressive, albeit somewhat anticlimactic after all the fire stunts.
• The highlight of the night was a hilarious dog act. Unlike many of the human performers, the dogs all looked fresh and energetic in their sparkly little costumes. They lined up at little doggie podiums and took turns doing stunts, including math (barking to answer questions), jumping over hurdles, walking on top of a big hamster wheel while another dog pounced back and forth through the middle, and finally forming a conga line. I was in stitches over one tiny dog in his yellow satin jacket. He dashed under the hurdles and then peed on another dog’s podium. He just couldn’t stay focused on the task and required constant redirection from his handlers (hey, this is beginning to sound like some of my second-grade report cards).
• Just when my butt ached from the hard bench and my nerves could hardly stand another death-defying, safety-be-damned performance, the stagehands dragged a dilapidated old trampoline into the ring and assembled it. The stained woven web attached to a rusty rickety frame with shabby bumper pads. Workers hoisted up two tall stilts at the end of the trampoline and secured them with cables to the perimeter of the ring. The performers made a dramatic entrance in a tight pack under the spotlight with lots of synchronized militaristic moves to the blaring music. One guy bounced up to a platform on the stilts and hooked himself to a harness. The group then took turns bouncing and flipping, occasionally flying up to be grabbed by stilt boy, who swung the person under his legs so that if his hands had slipped, the trampoliner would have rocketed out into the audience. One girl lost her footing and conked her chin on the trampoline frame.
By western standards, the show was cheesy and amateurish. Costumes looked cobbled together from personal wardrobes, cast-offs from cheap boutiques and sequin tape. The props and equipment were ancient with torn and faded fabric and layers of chipped paint. The two clowns wore mismatched street clothes and simple make-up. Although many of the performers displayed real talent and perseverance, they lacked polish. Frankly, the whole production was just a notch above a high school talent show.
And yet, when I looked out over the audience, I saw children doubled over with laughter during the clown routines. I saw parents and youngsters wide-eyed with mouths agape during dangerous stunts, sighing and hugging each other with relief at each success. I saw Mr. Kek’s smile stretched across his face as he hooted and clapped.
I saw joy.
And isn’t that what the circus is all about?
